


Two Truths And A Lie

by Minuete



Series: Advent Calendar Prompts [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Advent calendar prompt, Backstory, Day 5, Episode: s01ep11 Fire, F/M, Guilt, Mulder's childhood, Tumblr Prompt, fireplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 06:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16867837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minuete/pseuds/Minuete
Summary: The backstory to Mulder's fear of fire that no one asked for, with Mulder's line from the "Fire" episode to Scully.





	Two Truths And A Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Fulfilling tumblr's only-txf-fanart Philes' Xmas Advent Calendar Prompt Day 5: Fireplace

_“There’s something else I haven’t told you about myself, Scully. I hate fire. Hate it. Scared to death of it. When I was a kid, my best friend’s house burned down. Had to spend the night in the rubble to keep away looters. For years, I had nightmares about being trapped in a burning building.”_

Mulder gave Scully the same story he gave to Phoebe about his phobia: two truths and a lie. He didn’t want to scare her away with the guilt and trauma he’d carried since childhood: that he had caused that fire in his friend’s home. He was spending the weekend at James’ place and suggested that they start a fire in the fireplace located in the living room while they played Séance. Embers jumped out bypassing the fire screen twenty minutes into their game igniting the couch that quickly spread to the rest of the room. They shouted for help, the flames blocking the entryway to the foyer. The living room was quickly getting engulfed, the smoke filling Mulder’s lungs and stinging his eyes, when James had enough sense to grab the metal poker, screaming in agony as it burned his palm from the radiating heat, and threw the metal poker at one of the large windows. The window broke allowing the fresh air to rush in feeding the flames as the boys jumped out the jagged glass window into the rose bushes. The stinging sensation of being pricked and cut from the thorns and pieces of broken glass were numbed by the fear in their system. They quickly disentangled themselves and ran towards concerned neighbors who greeted them with hugs, shocked expressions on their faces as they watched the destruction unfold.

They watched in horror as they see James’ parents upstairs frantically waking up his younger twin brothers, opening the window in the shared bedroom and having them crawl out onto the roof as the interior downstairs continued to burn, compromising the structure. When it was only James’ father who had to escape through the windows to join the others on the roof, he turned back and disappeared.

The firefighters finally arrived moments later, and quickly set up their trucks while a handful carried a ladder over to the corner of the home not get engulfed in flames to retrieve James’ mother and brothers. They could make out the mom’s frantic gestures and a firefighter motioning he was entering from the second floor to perform a quick search and rescue. James and Mulder ran to James’ mom when she stepped off the ladder visibly shaken.

“James?! Fox?!” she hugged them fiercely, “Your father ran back into the house to search for you two!”

Agonizing seconds passed by as they waited for two figures to materialize from the second floor as firefighters were battling the flames on the first. However, by this time, the bottom half of the home started to collapse on itself. The second story suddenly became the first as firefighters rushed closer to save their comrade and James’ father. A shout, “They’re over here!” quickly followed by “Medical attention now!”.

Days later, Mulder stood beside the rubble of what used to be his best friend’s home. James’ father had to be flown to Massachusetts General Hospital to be treated for his third-and-fourth-degree burns, essentially relocating the family to Boston. The firefighter was forever a local hero, succumbing to major head trauma during the structure collapse. As for Mulder, news traveled fast that he was present at the unfortunate incident only a year after Samantha’s disappearance, another stigma under his belt.

Two truths and a lie. After he discarded the tape Phoebe left as her parting gift, he asked Scully to take a drive with him to the Reflecting Pool. With eyes fixated on the pool, he extracted the lie out of his story, to reveal the truth of his childhood trauma. Once he finished, Scully tentatively reached over and squeezed his right hand with her left, a silent understanding that his secret would be kept safe.


End file.
